I had to interview a thwarted school shooter at one point. Had access to the court documents, and it was very clear they had utilized the drills to help plan.
I have never had to go through one of those but damn the 11 year-old is right . As they usually attend the school they go to ,they have attended all of those instructional scenarios so therefore know exactly how to combat it😞
I overheard another maybe a 6 or 7yo in a shoe store saying "I can't get any light up shoes bcause they might light up and a school shooter will find me" 💔
High school post columbine/ 9/11 era next to army base. Got in trouble in 10th grade bc they popped an active shooter alert & didn't tell us it was a drill. Teacher screamed as I threw a desk thru the window & led 20 classmates out. We were down the block before we learned it was just a drill.🤷♀️
I recall saying something like "stay and die if you want. If not follow me." I'm an armybrat & was a JROTC cadet & some classmates were already used to following my lead. I wasn't going to let us be sitting ducks.
Fought the suspension & won btw. They changed their policy on drills after that.🤷♀️
Our 10th grader’s high school has loads of interior rooms with no windows and many on the second floor. You’ve prompted me to ask if the upstairs exterior rooms have fire ladders. You forever changed those in your class that day and it’s infuriating we can’t resolve this as a nation.
I appreciate that & it was something that stuck with me & gave me constant anxiety thru high school & college. Some classes I withdrew from entirely after seeing the location & determining that there were no plausible escape routes. I still sit in restaurants facing the door & avoid tight bars.
And I agree. Infuriating & disgusting. I highly suspect the "head on a swivel" way of life has negatively affected & possibly kickstarted my anxiety disorder. We shouldn't have to live like this.
It's so sad. My 13-year-old has nightmares regularly. She's even argued to stay home on some days...it's the only thing she has nightmares about. I even stayed in the country where she was born an extra year after Sandy Hook...I couldn't imagine bringing her back to a place where this shit happens.
My kid has also noted this over the years, also that people’s patterns of hiding tend to be really consistent and that would just make it easier for the shooter to target them.
These drills normalize gun violence, show potential shooters how to succeed, and traumatize students & teachers.
They also make kids, teachers and schools do the heavy lifting while avoiding the real issue: too many guns and not nearly enough prevention.
I think about this a lot. It just traumatizes the kids and gives future shooters a blueprint. The only beneficiaries are the companies selling tactical backpacks and drill routines.
Yeahhhhh the nonchalance my 11 year old has when telling me 'school was good, another shooting drill today' absolutely crushes me. Columbine was my senior year so I never really had to deal with this stuff.
One of the lessons of Uvalde was that the cops had no idea what the drills and training are bc they assumed any quiet classroom was full of dead kids instead of trained disciplined kids
Yep. I remember being on spring break in 9th grade. It was the single rainy day at the beach house, so we were inside watching tv and saw the reporting. I’m 40 now. And not a damn thing has changed. 😔
Yeah. According to Gen Z, shooting drills are more normal than fire drills now. Because it’s rare buildings would catch on fire, much less be so bad everyone would have to evacuate. Shootings happen literally every day.
So sad 😢. Reminds me of my sister in the early 80s saying her friends were terrified when a fighter jet went low over the school because they thought nuclear was might have started. My mum said “don’t worry, you won’t hear them when they drop the bomb” - think she was trying to be reassuring 🤦♀️.
I used to live near an Air National Guard airfield, they constantly drilled F-16s and I can assure you that by the time you hear the jet, you are already dead.
Because kids are smart. Kids also realize that climate change and its effects are more important to their lives than trans people using bathrooms or participating in sports.
Crazy how quickly the pro-life crowd loses interest in life.
During the first 10 months they will do anything to protect the unborn. That same kid goes to TK/PK 3-4 years later and all the passion for life dissipates?? This hurts my brain.
Many of us teachers don’t do during drills what we would actually do, in case one of our students participating in the drill becomes a shooter in the future. So sad.
Tell your baby I said I’m so sorry. Though we voted, we still failed our children. He shouldn’t have to concern himself with issues like that. It breaks my heart.
But it’s ok, they’re going to get Bibles and pray in school now. Because we know that it creates a magic bubble over the school. FFS we’re going to be in bonnets and dresses soon.
They are too aware & it’s sad how normal it is to kids. My heart breaks for them. It’s playing a part in their personalities as they grow. Brains get altered by stress &fear, which is triggered in a lot of kids just walking into school every morning. Will the Bible’s in classes be bulletproof?
He's not wrong. The worst part: how ableist they are. They start when 1 is 0. Good luck keeping a baby quiet in an emergency. Unfortunately many with disabilities are sitting ducks and they realize it.
I used to do Threat Ass't in schools, there've always been kids in each grade & school who practice shooting anything from cross-bows on & who look up recipes for explosive to get revenge on somebody/something. Read the Threat Ass't, I think ALL parent & citizens should know it & protect each other
Yep. I had someone ask for suggestions as to what sort of stuff they could provide teachers for the school year, since they had FAANG money at the time. Hearing “blood control supplies and training” from someone was hell on my soul.
Fuck, that ain't even just for the shootings. Even if they never experience a school shooting they'll still need that training when bandits attack their settlement in the wasteland in a couple decades.
Retired from teaching in 2021 after 30 years. We had repeated lock-down and lock-in drills. We had annual ALICE trainings as well as Stop the Bleed. We had kits that included dressings and tourniquets. We had golf balls to throw and deter. And now, in reflection, it was a horror.
Teachers planning their classroom layouts to include hiding spots and lining walls on the hallway side with bookcases and filing cabinets—anything that could slowdown the penetration of a high velocity bullet piercing the walls. Yep. I’ve done that kind of classroom planning ever since Columbine.
One of our city high schools was remodeled just before Covid. Classrooms had massive window walls lining hallways. I will never understand how that got past the planning phase.
My daughter was an art teacher. Her husband is an automation engineer, we had several family meetings to plan the safer classroom and then implemented. It worked when they had a shooter. But not everyone has that option and it still eats at me.
😔As an English teacher, I had class sets of dictionaries, my own class library and three 4-drawer filing cabinets along the wall on the hallway. We had a shooting in our parking lot between two students. I’ll never forget the sound of gun shots. We went into lockdown. Longest 43 minutes of my life.
My oldest left her school cuz she found out someone knew a potential shooter who was arrested, for having gun on them, "would always have a gun on them anyways." 🤔 The kid said it so nonchalantly, my kid said, "I'm done with this place!" Kids are so desensitized that they don't even see a threat!
The drills are as much for the staff to participate in a coordinated response as they are for the children. And as much as a principal might emphasize to their teachers the importance of keeping their doors locked while class is in session, step 1 is always to clear the halls and check the door.
I asked my 17 year old if his teachers ever shut their doors and that was a no🤦🏻♀️. And he also told me school shooting don’t really happen in small rural areas😭.
I’m sure that’s right, but I hate that kids and educators have to think about this and practice for it instead of our country having reasonable gun laws
Source: I spent 19 years as a high school educator and teacher, all of them in the "school shooter" era, so I've had plenty of these conversations during drills where students typically point out the fact that if this were a real shooting none of us is armed.
I've been saying this for years. These poor children are far more realistic than the adults who are tasked with protecting them.. from other children.
A truly awful situation.
Comments
But also profound.
Fought the suspension & won btw. They changed their policy on drills after that.🤷♀️
"We all know why Trent isn't at this drill, Jimmy."
Being emotionally traumatised from school age on.
These drills normalize gun violence, show potential shooters how to succeed, and traumatize students & teachers.
They also make kids, teachers and schools do the heavy lifting while avoiding the real issue: too many guns and not nearly enough prevention.
I hate that school shootings are something that we could fix, but refuse to. Tolerating them is literally a choice we're making as a nation.
Crazy how quickly the pro-life crowd loses interest in life.
During the first 10 months they will do anything to protect the unborn. That same kid goes to TK/PK 3-4 years later and all the passion for life dissipates?? This hurts my brain.
Just a thought.
https://www.stopthebleed.org/
A truly awful situation.